


make my mind take place

by summerstorm



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Episode Tag, Episode: s03e16 1912, F/M, Secret Relationship, sanity-affirming sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-12
Updated: 2012-05-12
Packaged: 2017-11-05 05:30:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/402949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerstorm/pseuds/summerstorm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Maybe she's wrong," Elena says, already breathless, watching her shirt open under Alaric's hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	make my mind take place

**Author's Note:**

> Lots has happened since this episode (and since I wrote this snippet), so: this is set after Meredith first tells Alaric she thinks he was the one who killed those Council members, and explains her theory about the ring bringing out his dark side.

"Maybe she's wrong," Elena says, already breathless, watching her shirt open under Alaric's hands. It's all she has—maybe Meredith is wrong, because all Meredith has on Alaric is precedent and opportunity. Not proof. What if _Elena_ has lost it—it was her fingerprints on the stake they recovered from one of the murders, and it's not like she can remember every weapon she has ever touched.

Of course, at that moment she was busy being driven recklessly toward a bridge, but she's pretty much hanging by a thread. She's been putting bits of herself back together since most of the original vampires dispersed, but for a while there she was practically teetering over a breakdown.

Still, it's unsettlingly easy to picture herself in Alaric's situation, doubting herself, where she's been, those blackouts. "Maybe you were compelled," she says. Her shirt falls off her shoulders, and Alaric tosses it toward an armchair. "It's not that out there. You know it's not. Of all the possible explanations..." She trails off, looks at him to convey the rest of the sentence. His fingers are tight on her hips now, tense. She flips her hair off to one side again.

She's on top of him, her knees on either side of his thighs, on the couch in her living room—their living room now, the way things have been going, and that's what she wants him to think of it as, even if she's not used to it yet. Sneaking around has been easier since Jeremy left for Denver, maybe the one good little thing Elena got out of that decision, along with the big relief of not having to worry he'd die every day.

"And we can handle that," Alaric adds, his tone sad and disbelieving. Elena doesn't think there's anything wrong with wanting the easy explanation to be true, the one they can deal with. Maybe it isn't likely, maybe there's too much going against it. But if she can believe it, if they can believe it, just for now— 

"Let's say that's what happened. Even if it didn't. You're fine. You have to believe you can be fine." She runs her hands over his collarbone and kisses him again, deep and wet, enough to make him moan when she draws away. 

She stretches her back, and Alaric's hands find their way to her waist, warm and solid, his thumbs dipping past the waistband of her pants. She reaches sideways to grab a hair tie off the coffee table, bundles all her hair up into a messy ponytail and looks at him, breathes in deep. She wants him to be okay. She knows he does, too, she knows he's hoping just as much as she is that they've missed something. 

She leans in for a kiss, hard, rough, not the way she usually kisses—just the way she kisses when she's desperate. Hope isn't magic, it won't fix anything, but it's all she's got right now, all she can do: hang on and remind him he's here.


End file.
